Re:Deadlines and sprints are bad for you
by zdragnar on Saturday March 09, 2019 @03:58PM
(#19348431)
If a task cannot be completed within the timeline of a sprint, one of two things are true:
1) The task was not correctly estimated; it is discovered during the sprint that more effort than originally thought is needed.
2) Work that was not accounted for during sprint planning reduced your capacity; things like ad-hoc or unplanned meetings, sick time, peer and code reviews, HR processes, bugs from previous sprints, and so forth.
In both cases, the plan that came out of "sprint planning" does not match reality. I don't consider this to be a failure at all. How people react to it can be wrong, however. "Just get it done anyway", failing to inform team leads / managers when the change occurs, etc are unhealthy, because it creates a disconnect in expectations among the team due to either conflicting understanding of the work being done, or changes in expectations about capacity required.
1) The task was not correctly estimated; it is discovered during the sprint that more effort than originally thought is needed.
2) Work that was not accounted for during sprint planning reduced your capacity; things like ad-hoc or unplanned meetings, sick time, peer and code reviews, HR processes, bugs from previous sprints, and so forth.
In both cases, the plan that came out of "sprint planning" does not match reality. I don't consider this to be a failure at all. How people react to it can be wrong, however. "Just get it done anyway", failing to inform team leads / managers when the change occurs, etc are unhealthy, because it creates a disconnect in expectations among the team due to either conflicting understanding of the work being done, or changes in expectations about capacity required.